Are you hoping to adopt and wondering just how you might be able to make the process faster or more affordable? Self-matching could be your answer. There are no guarantees that self-matching will reduce the time spent waiting or the overall cost of your adoption. Still, in today's world, there are more opportunities to match privately than ever before, and you might as well put some effort into matching on your own. Self-matching cannot speed up your process or reduce your costs if you don't try it. What have you got to lose?
According to a study by the University of Maine, social media usage has grown 12.5% year-over-year since 2015. With more people online than ever before, social media is a great tool to try and find your match. It's what worked for us!
On January 1, 2022, my husband and I started a Facebook page and Instagram account to try and match on social media. We were just beginning the adoption process and decided to try self-matching first. It took a few months until we really got consistent with posting but by the spring, we were posting every day on both platforms, and in early July, an expectant mother reached out to us on Facebook. By mid-August, we were matched and got to be at the hospital when our son was born in November, less than 11 months after we started our journey.
What's the secret, you ask? Well as I said before, there are no guarantees but there certainly are some best practices for building a social media profile that will get attention. If you're interested in trying to match for adoption on social media, follow the steps below to get started:
Create a page/profile specifically for your adoption journey- On Facebook, this is set up like a business page under the category personal blog or cause. On Instagram, it is a business or creator account (a creator account is optimal for creating reels, something I highly recommend to get traffic on your page). It is important that these pages are SEPARATE from your personal Facebook page or Instagram account. If you have questions about this, email me from this site or reach out to me on Instagram!
Post consistently- I recommend posting daily to help you build an engaged audience and perform well in the algorithm. I even offer planners that help you have fresh content ideas for every day. If you aren't able to commit to posting quality content once a day, start with 5 or even 3 days a week. Once you get that schedule down, you can always grow from there. Beyond being favored by the algorithm from posting often, the reality is that every post you put out is another chance for an expectant mother to see you. That being said, you should focus on posting quality content that aims to do one of 3 things: (a) inform about you/what life would be like with you, (b) educate about adoption - educating people helps them react to your content, which helps your content perform, (c) ask for support for your journey - whether asking for prayers, shares, or encouragement, giving people practical ways to help you is the most effective way to crowdsource support.*
Be authentic- Being your authentic self is the best way to not only educate your audience about who you are and why you're pursuing adoption but also to show any potential expectant mother that comes across your page what life with you would be like. Work hard to strike a balance of posts that educate about you, educate about adoption, and explain ways that followers can support you. Remember that building an engaged audience is the goal because it might be a friend of a friend of a friend that needs to see your content at the right time to match with you. Don't burn your audience out by asking for shares on every post: work to educate them and get them to respond positively to your content so that they want to share.
Those are the top three steps I recommend (outside of a lot of prayer) to get started on your journey to self-matching on social media. Have you tried these tips? How are they working for you? Reach out on Instagram or at thehelfulhap@gmail.com to let me know!
*Disclaimer: You should NOT ask for shares on every post! Learn more about this on my Instagram @TheHelpfulHAP
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